You know, I should really come up with a category for this blog labeled, “Linda’s dumb moves.” It’d be my biggest category, I’m sure.

For those of you who were wondering, I did fold all of my clean clothes from my laundry mountain on Tuesday. For those of you who weren’t wondering, you now know anyway.

Now on to my stupid moment confession. It was on Monday. All of my children were in my vehicle and I was behind the wheel and on my way to various places.

As I climbed behind the wheel, I heard two of the children arguing (because that’s all they do nowadays) over a now empty bag of trail mix that I had in the vehicle and they’d devoured in .02 seconds. I grabbed the bag away, automatically lecturing on how not everything in this vehicle is just automatically theirs, and tossed the empty bag towards the floor on the passenger side of the van with every intention to throw it away at the next stop.

The passenger seat of my van rarely seats a real person. Instead it becomes home to my various papers, mail, my camera, notebook, pens, and so on and so forth. It gets cleared out regularly, but you’d never know it from looking at it while I’m driving.

I pull out of the driveway and I immediately hear something coming from the vacinity of the empty trail mix bag. I turn down the radio. I still hear it, louder now. I shut off the air conditioning and the fan motor for both the front and rear of the vehicle. Definitely hear something.

But now I’m at the stop sign at the end of my road. I’ve driven a mile. I sort of shrug my shoulders and figure somehow someway its the fault of the empty trail mix bag. Or maybe some sheet of paper is flapping in the breeze outside my van door.

I turn the corner, and as I accelerate, the noise gets louder. A lot louder. I ignore the children who are protesting about the lack of air conditioning and tunes. What in the world? It’s sort of a buzzing, flapping noise. It’s definitely coming from the front passenger side of my vehicle. I grab an item off my passenger seat and toss it at the empty trail mix bag. The bag moves, but the noise continues.

There goes THAT theory.

Just a few minutes later, I’m slowing down to make a right turn. As I round the corner, the flapping-buzzing noise changes and I’m definitely hearing a vibration. But the post office is just ahead, so I continue, and turn left into the drive. As I pull my van in, I’m convinced something is flapping in the breeze or possibly caught in my tire’s hubcap. I have no idea what it could be, but I have children so the possibilities are endless.

The noise continues even though the van is no longer moving. There goes my theory about something flapping in the wind. Maybe it’s an engine problem I worry for a moment, but not too badly because it’s a fairly new van. I shut off the motor and almost to my relief, the noise continues.

I walk around the front of my vehicle, checking out the tire area and looking around the doors and not noticing anything that could have caused that noise. I open the passenger door, determined to look on the floor to see if something else is there besides that trail mix bag.

As I open the door, I realize the noise is coming from the door. A loud buzzing, vibrating noise. Right inside that molded plastic door pocket, which normally just houses a local phone book. Why yes, I do carry a phone book in my vehicle not that I intend to make phone calls using the numbers. Instead I look places up to find addresses and I use the maps. So glad you inquired. Anyhow, normally just a phone book is in this thing. But now something else is obviously in there.

At this point, I’m imagining some very large bug that is making some very strange noises. I’m glad the phone book sticks out of the pocket. I pull it out and look in. Problem solved.

My vibrating noise is a Crest Spin toothbrush that somehow got into the pocket with the phone book and got turned on. (How many Google hits will that phrase bring in?) I didn’t even know I owned a Crest spin toothbrush. Sure, I’d bought them before, but that was at least two years ago, I’d guess. I never expected one to be in my vehicle.

Now I haven’t shared this story with my husband. He’s a mechanic ,by the way. I haven’t told him primarily because he’d be appalled that I didn’t immediately stop and inspect my vehicle as soon as I heard a strange noise. Not only had I heard a strange noise, but it was getting worse and still I drove. I could have done major damage to the vehicle. But I’ve been a mother for more than 10 years now and I know that before I pull over and request help, I better check things out. Because you never know where a vibrating Crest spin toothbrush might turn up.

Other Car News

On Wednesday morning, the children and I all piled into the vehicle. As they were entering, Maxine nabbed a magazine off my passenger seat. Maxine is seven and while she can read, it takes her a bit. As I sat down behind the wheel, Maxine screamed because Autumn had taken the magazine away.

“You can’t read that,” Autumn said, exerting all of her older sister authority. This coming from the girl who on Tuesday had flipped through the same magazine. Autumn, clearly feeling she was righting a great wrong, handed me the magazine, “Here, Mom,” she said gravely. “Maxine was trying to look at it.”

From the way Autumn reacted, you’d think Maxine was trying to read an x-rated magazine. Turns out it was the most recent issue of Glamour. I didn’t think anything of it and ordered Autumn to give it back to Maxine.

“But Mommmmm,” Autumn intoned, “she can’t read THAT!” What? I just read most of it the other day. I remember a big do/don’t section and a moving article written by a 33-year-old who died of breast cancer six days before the magazine went to press.

That’s when I took another look at the cover. “Intimate Must-Read! Are you good in bed? Great in bed? Men on what the best lovers do very, very right.” Not to mention the “449 smart, sexy looks” and “10 sexy things to do with your hair.”

I chuckled. Autumn’s worried Glamour is too strong for Maxine’s sensibilities. Obviously she thinks she learned a thing or two. I must admit I haven’t been looking at my magazine covers too closely. I don’t buy anything like Jane or Cosmo and I thought Glamour was pretty tame, especially compared to what I’ve seen of Jane, which is a magazine that traumatized me. No, it’s the teen magazine covers that I’ve been paying attention to in the grocery stores.

Poor Autumn. I’ve scarred her for life. She knows that her mom reads things like “15 completely underrated sex moments.” But I have to wonder, how much does she understand about, for instance, number six which is noticing in the mirror that your hair looks like an albatross’s nest and not caring. I mean she probably doesn’t know what an albatross is and I think it’s safe to say she doesn’t get the context that the article suggests is going on when you look in the mirror. But you never know. After all, she’s 10 and it’s 2004. Maybe I should just lock her up now. After all, she’s been reading my Glamour magazine.

Isn’t it time for school to start, like, soon?

But back to school means back to school shopping and really my children have enough stuff. But I can’t let them go back to school without new stuff. I did get them new shoes and supplies, but I still need to get clothes.

The children in question are upstairs supposedly cleaning their room. It’s day two. If I did it, it’d be done in like an hour tops. But it takes them hours because they have to keep fighting with each other. There is hair pulling and screaming and a bunch of other stuff. Then I just want to beat them all, but I can’t because beatings are frowned upon.

Why do children need so much stuff? I never had this much stuff, did I? Yet we keep giving them more stuff to ignore, ruin and neglect. Do we not learn? Apparently not.

I have a laundry pile in my bedroom that is higher than my waist. I’m 5’7, so that’s saying something. It’s all clean clothes. Clothes that yesterday were placed on my made bed with the anticipation that I would eventually fold them and put them away. Then at about 10 p.m., my husband decided he wanted to go to bed. I soon heard, “Li-nda” in THAT tone. Oh right. Clothes. Enough clean clothes to make it look like we were already in bed and asleep with a few other people. So. Still haven’t folded them and apparently blogging about them doesn’t make them go away.

Autumn is now in the living room singing along with the song on the TV. She says the room upstairs is clean. But her definition of clean and mine tend to vary. I mean it’s not that I’m trying to be picky. But I think when you’re room is clean that you shouldn’t have trash all over the floor. She says she already did that. Hmmmm.

It is supposed to reach the 90s this week. We haven’t had 90 degree temperature all summer long. Not at all. On my birthday, the 19th of August, frost hurt our pumpkin plants. Frost. And not an early winter frost. No. You’d have to have summer in order to get an early winter frost. We have not had summer. We’ve had a long fall season. Now that fall is coming according to the calendar, it appears summer temperatures are arriving.

I just want to know which one of my kids messed with Mother Nature’s thermostat. Because I know them. It had to be them.

Now, I have to go give a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to Justin so he can clean up the scribbling he decided to do just for the heck of it yesterday.

But he never lies about it. If he does it, he’ll admit it. Unlike Maxine, who swears she is going to stop lying soon. She lies about things she doesn’ t have to lie about. Amanda just stays quiet. Autumn is whining. A lot. And she uses baby talk when she asks for something, which is just not attractive in a 10-year-old.

School starts here on Wednesday, Sept. 8. Before it starts we will be spending Labor Day weekend camping. And I have to take the children school shopping for clothing.

I keep thinking that I need to get ready for school. Make everything as organized as possible. Start the school schedules. Make helpful lists and designate places for school bags and papers that need signed. Things like that. But it’s going to be in the 90s this week. Can’t waste summer. I’ve been waiting for it too long.